


Walk Through Darkness

by lysanatt



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Darkfic, Love, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-07 01:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/425346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysanatt/pseuds/lysanatt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night of anger and fury leaves Severus with child. Love and need has nothing to do with it--or?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Through Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Dark romance. No, you will not end up scarred for life, reading it. 
> 
> Prompt: The middle of a war is a terrible place to be a knocked-up spy with an estranged lover, so how does (Severus or Remus) deal with the situation, and can there ever be reconciliation? Does the war destroy too much for either of them to see a future?
> 
> I wrote Mpreg! Never again! *flail*

The cold wind sweeps through the streets, caressing his shivering body; an icy hand on his skin. The black cloak is too thin, or so it feels, he still hasn't learnt to dress warmly although he should have. He's seven months pregnant, and it feels as if the child is taking up everything, eating everything. It is a parasite that makes him tired and sad and utterly disgusted with himself.

His body is unwelcoming, barren as the cold landscape. Scotland in March is grey and frozen. Somehow it is hard to understand how a child can grow in there, in a body that has never been held, never been loved, never been touched. But it does, the foetus, grows.

Severus hates it. It makes him feel as if there is hope, still; a starlit, glittering hope in the middle of the hopelessness. But time passes by and he is alone with the hope that is no hope.

One night of drunken anger; of righteous fury and of a desperation so deep that some kind of dark and obscure magic wrapped itself around his body, making this abomination possible.

He weaves a spell around himself to disguise what only he knows about and Disapparates to the only family he has known since his mother died. Death Eaters. The Dark Lord. Danger.

He doesn't dare think about what will happen when the Dark Lord realises that Headmaster Severus Snape is with child.

 

He sits by the fire, the small child in his arms is laughing. It is butter-fat and cream-coloured; cheeks like roses. The child smells like warm summer days in an English garden. Remus is still amazed this is his. He stretches; the warmth of the hearth is loosening his sore muscles, burning his memories of cold nights in damp forests away. He is here, at home, with his family.

He is so lost in thoughts and in the son that is _his_ , that her voice disappears when she asks him if he wants a cuppa and an sandwich. Ted is falling asleep, burping and drooling slightly with a thumb in his tiny mouth. Remus thoughts fly, even if his baby's strawberry mouth makes little noises of sleep and contentment.

They leave the cosy room, his thoughts. The safety. They leave the small London flat, to fly above mountains and meadows until they finally land, fluttering confused, somewhere in Scotland, so very far away. One night. One fatal night. One night where everything he had believed to be true turned out to be false. Where the hope he had once had was crushed and renewed. One night in Severus' arms.

He should forget. He should cherish what he has; for the first time since Fenrir Greyback ripped his flesh and life apart he is loved and welcomed. He is safe. He looks at his woman and sees nothing. She is invisible, even though he can see her; pink bubblegum hair and her tight jeans. All he can think of is how Severus' black eyes burn hotter than the fire roaring in the fireplace.

 

It is all about choices. They both know that. No matter the outcome of the ongoing war, they are both prisoners: one caught in a loveless marriage; another entangled in a tangle of snakes and madness.

It is all about choices. Remus' first letter ends up on the granite tiles: a small white crumbled piece of parchment.

It is all about choices. It takes months and the knowledge of the Dark Lord's madness before Severus unfolds the small paper ball he has thrown down in a drawer. The few words he writes are the hardest he has ever written in his life.

It is all about choices. 'After the war,' Remus writes back, 'I'll be yours.' He still doesn't know about the child growing inside the desert that is Severus' body.

 

Death is nothing.

Death is just waking up to see loved faces.

Death is a walk through fog and shadows; through darkness and the feeling that just around the corner is something one longs for.

Death is to find out that something, someone, is missing. The one.

It depends entirely on who one is. And who one wants to become.

 

The house is small, just like the garden. It has room enough for one and, Severus realises, soon for two. He doesn't know how long he has been walking through the darkness to find the small flint cottage, but when he finds it he knows it with a deep certainty: he is home.

His child thinks so too. It doesn't care that the Dark Lord killed them both, it feels just as alive as before. It kicks and moves and turns, and Severus knows it is time soon. He unfolds the letters Remus sent him, letters he has kept in a pocket in his robe, and wonders if Remus is with his wife and his child somewhere, in another life, in another death. 

Severus strokes the bulge that contains all he has left of his wolf. He has abandoned hate and jealousy somewhere in the fog he walked through. He only wishes Remus to be happy. Somewhere. All he wishes for is that they had got the chance they both hoped for.

But it is gone now. Heaven is not at all what Severus thought it would be.

The next day (or how time is measured here; Severus isn't sure) the parasite inside him has decided not to stay a parasite much longer. He can feel its fingers, its toes. Life is searching inside him for a way out. He knows the spells, of course, but the anxiety of doing this alone is like cold raindrops trickling underneath his high collar.

The anxiety turns into fear. Fear for his own life, fear for the child that is his and Remus'. His son or daughter: a person who will be bound to him through blood and by love, if he can find it in his heart to give that. As the first contraction wrecks his body, Severus for the first time knows with a deep certainty he already loves the baby. Merlin, he loves the tiny life inside of him!

He falls on his knees, ready to take whatever this world will give him. He will not be alone for much longer. He rests his head on the armrest of the chair he is clinging to. The fabric smells slightly of dust. Another contraction takes its place, and Severus knows he'll have to prepare himself. He leans into the touch, groaning as the pain subsides. The hand on his brow is cool and soothing.

Slowly, he raises his head. Touch?

'Careful, Severus,' Remus whispers. 'I'm here now. Home.'

 

Only when they both lie with their tiny son between them, Severus understands that heaven is made of true love.


End file.
